Saturday, December 3, 2011

Omurice

I remember as a kid, one of the special dinners my mom would make was omurice, which is just fried rice with an omelet. Doesn't sound that special from that description but my mom would always write "LOVE" or draw a happy face on the omelet with ketchup and that would always make me so happy and excited for the meal.

Nowadays, it's one of those things I make if we have leftover rice from the night before. Most recently, I made it for Thanksgiving breakfast. I thought my sister and I needed to carbo-load and get energized for a day of cooking.

[Serves 4]
1 Idaho potato, diced (it's better if the pieces are pretty small, otherwise it'll take a long time to cook them through)
pinch of salt and pepper
1/4 sweet onion, diced
handful of mushrooms, chopped
1 sweet sausage, fresh, casing removed - you can substitute any meat you think will taste good. Spam is a popular one but ground beef or pork or leftover rotisserie chicken would all work; use your imagination.
1/2 cup ketchup
2 cups cooked rice
1 teaspoon olive oil
And you can always add in any vegetables you like: peas, bell peppers, squash, anything that would be good in fried rice.

For the omelets, I like to make one per person and cook it in a crepe pan. It's like a personal sized omelet that way. I use 1 egg and a splash of milk or cream and a pinch of salt.

To make the rice component, throw all of the veggies and meat into a frying pan or skillet with a bit of vegetable oil. Once the potatoes are cooked through you can add in the salt and pepper and stir just before adding the rice. Once the rice is warmed through and the ingredients look well combined, add in the ketchup.

I like to scoop some rice onto the plate...

... and then top it with the omelet.

And for a twist, we ate our omurice with sriracha instead of more ketchup.